OK, so I have been absent a few days...but I needed a break - I have always and in most ways still do think that a sports specific broadcasting job for an ex-professional athlete should be pretty easy, that is, things like the analysis and the “colour” should be pretty much second nature.

In my case, there is no exception there, it is fairly easy, with the technical support I showed you in the vlog and the plentiful historical stats around ball players and teams to come up with a pretty accurate picture of any team. It really helps that my broadcast partner, Ron Macintosh, knows his way around the mic and stumps up for my total lack of experience in sports broadcasting. Unlike me, he is the consummate professional and is always at the arena hours before me doing his research, memorising names (which is no mean feat when one day the names are German and Korean, the next, Iranian and Lithuanian and on and on through the map!) and looking up facts and titbits to tell the viewing audience. I think the technical equipment that gives quick stats is pretty much just for ex-jocks, as he barely uses it - we switched positions after the first day so I could be next to it!

However, what I have discovered is that my tolerance for sport is limited, it takes real focus to concentrate on something that in all reality, I might actually skip through, if I were watching on TV, in lieu of reruns of “Monk.” It has really helped that I have had feedback from some younger players and fans in the UK who have been thirsty for basketball and especially someone to use what they see as both entertainment and for teaching points. So thanks to those who have facebook messaged me their support or left comments here!

So, in the days I have been away, I have had a spattering of random thoughts and I am going to spew them out here in a little bit, probably in no particular order, in a series of short blogs and, if you’re lucky [;-)], and perhaps in another vlog. I am sitting in the lobby lounge at the moment, watching China play Greece, I predict Greece will run away with it in the end - you’ll have to take my word for it that as I speak, the score is 15 - 7 to Greece with 4:21 left in the first. I say I am watching China play Greece, when what I actually mean is that it is inescapable. Every TV is fixed to that channel in the lobby, with the sound turned up.

I had what might be called an animated discussion with Jeff yesterday after I came back to the hotel after seeing two games and commentating on one for the BCC. I had had about enough of sports and Olympics for the day and declared I didn’t want to watch any more - then men’s gymnastics came on so I acquiesced, briefly….

I don’t hate sports, there isn’t any Freudian resentment, I think I just have a low threshold - I can watch x-men cartoon reruns all Saturday morning, but I can’t stay glued to most sports for more than 20 minutes (not for fun anyway.)

One thing that is interesting - and fun - is the camaraderie that has built up in the broadcast area. I sit next to the French, who are in a game to try and make me laugh while on air. The NBC crew, who are ever-present, doing all the US games and most men’s games that involve NBA players (which is most teams in this contest) have been wonderful, Mark Breen and former silver-medalist, Ann Meyers have been especially warm and for those who are wondering, Craig Sager is not one to dodge the bar tab! I think I mentioned already, that they even gave me a little love - in the form of three seconds air time (very little love?) - during the broadcast of one of their games. Our position is right next to the Swedes, who seem to have way too much fun on the mic during games and right behind the Russians - who do not.

One of my first posts suggested that you can learn a lot about a people by the way they travel, well, now I am going to expand that a little with my impressions of what you can glean about people (and maybe oneself) while watching sports. I have a seat hovering metres from the half way line, so I think I have a pretty good spot draw out some unscientific, but perhaps interesting thoughts and ideas:

•The Chinese fans completely understand the concept of superstars, their response as a crowd to elite payers and great teams shows that they clearly support the star system. However, there is a difference. When I played in the league and the Grizzlies arrived in Vancouver, playing there was a joy, the fans seemed to cheer for everything, they wanted their team to win, but also wanted to see great effort and good plays whichever side they came from.

•The Chinese fans really love to see effort and in every blow out game I have seen, they have strongly rooted for the perceived underdog, pretty much for the beginning, even when their home team was playing them. Unlike Vancouver, it doesn’t seem like jubilant naivety, the Chinese are a hugely knowledgeable basketball country, many of the people I see in the arena even know who I am - that is fanatic dedication to the minutia by definition. They just seem to have a different sense of the necessary and important aspects of the competition…If only their own authorities had such faith in the contest itself, and worried less about the outcome!

•I have watched good games and bad, wins for China and losses. The crowd is always disappointed in the loss for China when it happens, sometimes demonstratively so, but they revel in their achievements along the way. They are obviously thrilled by wins for their team, appreciative, it seems for the honour, but never at the expense of the opponent….

•Chinese fans have a strange and wonderful appreciation for kitsch. I watch in horror at half time and time out shows in general, but here - horrible - the five Olympic mascots (that I have renamed, but in the interest of Sino-British relationships, I won’t tell you their new noms de guerre) come out to perform they cheer wildly. That was until I saw the ultimate in tawdry acts. The five mascots, looking more like teletubbies - except gayer - did the chicken dance at half time. The audience looked stunned - apart from the Australian fans who, in their all Lycra one-piece women’s basketball uniforms seemed buoyed by the experience, I assume it was the Castlemaine XXXX. Then the music finished, the telly...I mean mascots finished with a flourish and the crowd sat in stunned silence...and then erupted...I mean China-beats-USA-in-the-gold-medal-match type loud. Then I was stunned. The chicken dance? Really?! Wow.

•Over the last five days, the Chinese fans have learned exactly what it takes to get their faces on the jumbotron…they are absurdly creative.

•You don’t have to be a great athlete to play basketball, but it really helps…. Seems obvious, I know, but then read the next point…

•In sport, just as in life, there are critical junctures and events that are once in a lifetime opportunities for some. The Olympics are perhaps the epitome of critical competition and yet, as I watch the games there are still plenty of players on the men’s and women’s side who chose not to show up for some or all of the competition. It is driving me crazy. The most classically significant national competition I have participated in was the commonwealth games in Melbourne, Australia and even though I was dragging my out-of-shape carcass out of retirement, I wanted to maximise every moment, even though it felt like it was killing me. To watch some of the lacklustre performances I have seen by bona fide super stars in this tournament is, frankly, pissing me off...especially when some of them could literally jump over me in my prime. Some of them did!

•I miss being in shape.If it wasn’t for the total indignity of it all, I might consider going on the biggest loser or some similar show to embarrass myself into losing some weight. Maybe I should just have my jaw wired? No, wait, that won’t work. I can get whole chicken wings through the gaps in my teeth...instead, since I live in LA part time, maybe I’ll go the Star Jones route? I mean stomach staples, not a gay husband (allegedly.)I didn’t realise how much of my identity was/is tied up with the trappings of the game. I spend a lot of time criticising athletes and former athletes for the same thing, but in my case, instead of women and adulation, I was hooked on being toned - and I am jonesing something fierce right now!It’s ironic that when I was in shape - when I had 7% body fat - NBA fans called me fat - and I believed them! Looking back, I should have had thicker skin back when my skin was thinner